Ben May Department for Cancer Research, University of Chicago, 929 East 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
Development. 2010 Jul;137(14):2265-78. doi: 10.1242/dev.044826.
A major goal of developmental biology is to understand the molecular mechanisms whereby genetic signaling networks establish and maintain distinct cell types within multicellular organisms. Here, we review cell-fate decisions in the developing eye of Drosophila melanogaster and the experimental results that have revealed the topology of the underlying signaling circuitries. We then propose that switch-like network motifs based on positive feedback play a central role in cell-fate choice, and discuss how mathematical modeling can be used to understand and predict the bistable or multistable behavior of such networks.
发育生物学的一个主要目标是了解遗传信号网络在多细胞生物中建立和维持不同细胞类型的分子机制。在这里，我们回顾了果蝇发育眼睛中的细胞命运决定，以及揭示潜在信号通路拓扑结构的实验结果。然后，我们提出基于正反馈的开关样网络基元在细胞命运选择中起着核心作用，并讨论了如何使用数学建模来理解和预测这种网络的双稳态或多稳态行为。
